Love

I’m in love with life right now. It’s unabashed. It’s warm and fuzzy. It’s happier than I thought I could be.

I’m updating the blog with this mini-post to announce that homesickness has officially hit, even though I thought I was immune. Some of the credit goes to the Seattle Times, which published an article of mine in the Pacific NW Magazine this week. But most of it goes to a care package. Monday afternoon a box arrived in the mailroom with BERNSTEIN scrawled on the side. I carried it down the stairs, through the drizzly street, up the elevator – all the way to the common room, where I split it open with scissors. A few curious floormates between classes looked up.

It was filled with solid gold, or maybe solid sunshine. A bar of Theo chocolate. A smooth cylinder of orange vanilla green tea. Salts, salts, salts! (Gourmet salts!) A coin purse shaped like a cookie, a breathtakingly beautiful teacup, and a 108-piece, double-sized macaroni and cheese puzzle (which, yes, I finished in one night.) A finger puppet. Cookbooks, some adorable CakeSpy products, gourmet nuts and popcorn, stationary printed with pots and pans.

But best of all? A card. It has a photo of Pike Place Market on the front, and inside, signatures from Seattle foodies. Thorough honesty – standing there in the common room, surrounded by people, I managed not to cry, but barely.

Window view

It wasn’t just Seattle, even though that was a big part of it. The chocolate bar, the tea, the CakeSpy cupcake comic, all of it is so Seattle in a way that Boston can never be. I miss Pike Place Market, Molly Moon’s ice cream and Top Pot Doughnuts with serious heartache. I miss mountains. I miss the water. I miss recycling. I miss my neighborhood, the evergreens blackening as the sun drops low. All of this, all of Seattle, managed to fit into that cardboard box.

But it was more than that. With Seattle came everything else, inseparably woven with family and my old life. As I flipped through cookbooks for the first time in a month, it truly hit me how much I missed the ability to get up and bake, whenever. And as I held that letter, I was overwhelmed with humility and appreciation and unfiltered love. There are people who care about me in Seattle. And for a few seconds, I forgot that I wasn’t there, and understood the significance of what I’d left behind.

I’m okay now. I unpacked the box, passed around the salts to be sniffed, broke off a piece of chocolate and felt better. I called Jenny of Purple House Dirt, who organized the mass care package. I left her a scattered, distracted voicemail about how happy I felt, sniffling all the while.

I feel your pain! I was lucky enough to get a dormitory with a kitchen, but the kitchen was ovenless, and all year every time I walked past a cupcake shop I would get sad. Hold on there, you’ll have oven access again soon.

Care packages… I love getting those, but it never comes without some homesickness. You are very blessed to have so many good friends.. and the food blogger community provides plenty of those! Wonderful post, Elissa.

Beautiful, just beautiful, Elissa. I feel compelled to point out that the very fact that your fellow Seattle food bloggers even thought to send you such a wonderful package speaks volumes about *you.* It’s a huge (and well-deserved) compliment. Well done, all around.

It is so wonderful to hear you got a care package from fellow seattle foodies! I can’t believe I have yet to go there but I know I’d love it. I’m sorry you are homesick, I definitely remember that phase of the beginning of being away too. Boston is a great city and if you go to the lovely little college around the common that I think you do, you will have a great experience!

I feel your pain, Elissa. Or rather, I felt it was I was 17 and away at college in Boston, too. The homesickness will subside soon, don’t you worry, but it will show up again unexpectedly sometimes. Care packages are a sweet reminder of home in the meantime, though.

Amazing how Seattle, or wherever home is, gets into your DNA. I missed all the same things when I moved away, and I found myself moving back to Seattle 3 times. But third time’s a charm. This really is home now. Just took me time to figure that out.

awwww that put almost tears in my eyes. i know exactly how you’re feeling, went through it while away from home and in college once upon a time. congrats on your article published, and love that cereal bown. quite an unique one!

Last year, I went through the same thing. Stuck in the dorms, no kitchen. I spent a lot of time on tastespotting, and started a long list of things that I wanted to make. When I went home, I would take my list and make as big of a dent in it as I could. Keep yourself busy and a few months from now you’ll be wondering where time has gone! And next fall, when your heading back to school, it will feel like home, too.

Being from Oregon and living in the East Coast for 4 years, it was hard to understand the lack of recycling. They do try, but there is so much more that can be done. At least they have the bottle bill in Boston – Providence, Columbus, Ohio are so behind. Enjoy the humidity, because the snow/wind in Boston gets down right frigid. :-D

i have been reading your blog for just a very short time now. i love your recipes and your insight into life. but this post…this post took the cake for me. why? because i am soon to move to Seattle from Spokane, WA. i have been fearful of moving, due to the insane jump in the cost of living, the larger city (i’ve lived in Spokane my whole life), just the down right scariness of a new place after being in one for so long. but your post, THIS post, has soothed my fears completely. as a certifiably insane foodie, i knew Seattle would would appease my lust for the new and exciting, smells, tastes…many more options at my finger tips. but your post truly convinced me that Seattle IS the place for me. no fear now! thank you so much for this post and I am glad that there are those that love you enough to understand that sometimes, just a little taste of home is enough to brighten one’s day!

Such a touching post. Leaving home and being on the other side of the country would not be easy. I stayed close to home and still missed my family now and then. And those Fran’s sea salt caramels…oh my. I just tried them for the first time a few weeks ago and my heart leaped. They are perfect.

That sounds like the best care package ever! I remember homesickness so vividly though it was decades ago! It too shall pass, especially as your new surroundings become more and more familiar. Even so, sometimes, when I miss a certain person or place that same “homesick ” feeling hits again. From experience, I know that your parents are “homesick” for you too.

LOVE your article about the kitchen trunk, you really are a fantastic writer, I’m sure we will be seeing your name in print for many many years to come!
Glad you got a box of goodies to brighten your week too, hope the college experience is going well!

The great thing about being homesick at college, is that you know that you will be going home soon, no matter what time of year it is! Will you be going back to Seattle for Thanksgiving? That’s not too far away!

i’ve heard about your blog before, and have stopped by a few times in the past, but it was that article that really got me here and reading. you are such a talented writer, elissa, and reading your blog is incredibly inspiring. keep it up! :)

This is amazing. I loved your article–it reminded me so much of my experience packing up my baking tools for school (My father trying to convince me I didn’t really need three different sizes of muffin tins, my mom assuring me that there will be Indian food in Washington, so I didn’t need to bring the whole spice cabinet). And your post brought me very near to tears. It reminded me how much I miss my home–the subway system, the smell of rain on Brooklyn sidewalks, bagels that actually deserve the name. I’m inspired by your ability to evoke such strong emotions in me and in every one of your readers. And I’m amazed by how successful you are in the things that you love. Reading your blog simultaneously makes me happier than I can say and gives me a massive inferiority complex. I can only hope that one day I will be as good a journalist and baker, as you are right now.

I went to school close to home, so I never got any of those care packages, but I’m sure it must be a great feeling to get one. I would have especially loved those salted chocolates. Being from Vancouver, I could sure relate to missing the Pacific Northwest when gone for any extended period of time. It’s a great place to be.

Stick with it! Seattle is a great place, not an easy one to leave, but you will always have it to come back to. Moving far aways is one of the hardest things I have ever done. I wish you luck, and know you will find new favorite places and fabulous snacks in Boston.

You’re a Seattle-ite transplanted to Boston…and I am a Bostonian (through and through) who is in LOVE with Seattle. I’ve spent many many “vacations” there, visiting my brother and taking in every nook and cranny of the city in a way one never can with Boston.
However…Boston is beautiful…it’s big and there’s a lot to find. I wish you the best!

As I prepare to go off to college, I know that care packages will be something more than a box in the mail, but a taste of home, a scent of all of the things that I will have left behind. In a few short months as I leave home, I know I will rely on things like this to overbear the emotions of leaving my family, my home, and my comfort all at home. So wonderful how things like this can bring you back to certain places, without even being there. Much thanks to those who are able to give you this comfort without even knowing you!

I know I’m reading this about 9 months late, but this post totally hits home. I’m also a college student in Boston originally from Seattle and all those things you mentioned make being away from home that much harder.